The leaks are the latest setback in a prolonged effort to clean up the site that is ranked as one of the world's most contaminated places.

The federal government created Hanford in the 1940s as part of the Manhattan Project and according to ABC News, spends $2 billion annually trying to clean it up. The tanks, which were only supposed to last for 20 years, hold gallons of highly radioactive materials leftover from plutonium production for nukes.